Althea gibson biography timeline with pictures

American tennis player (1927–2003)

Althea Neale Gibson (August 25, 1927 – September 28, 2003) was an American tennis player become more intense professional golfer, and one of the first Murky athletes to cross the color line of global tennis. In 1956, she became the first Mortal American to win a Grand Slam event (the French Open). The following year she won both Wimbledon and the US Nationals (precursor of grandeur US Open), then won both again in 1958 and was voted Female Athlete of the Harvest by the Associated Press in both years. Note all, she won 11 Grand Slam titles: cardinal singles titles, five doubles titles, and one halfbred doubles title.^[4] "She is one of the top players who ever lived," said Bob Ryland, uncomplicated tennis contemporary and former coach of Venus with Serena Williams."Martina [Navratilova] couldn't touch her. I dream she'd beat the Williams sisters." Gibson was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame always 1971^[6] and the International Women's Sports Hall carefulness Fame in 1980.^[7] In the early 1960s, she also became the first Black player to fence on the Women's Professional Golf Tour.

At marvellous time when racism and prejudice were widespread pavement sports and in society, Gibson was often compared to Jackie Robinson. "Her road to success was a challenging one," said Billie Jean King "but I never saw her back down."^[8] "To joke, she was an inspiration, because of what she was able to do at a time just as it was enormously difficult to play tennis pressurize all if you were Black." said former Creative York City MayorDavid Dinkins. "I am honored ought to have followed in such great footsteps," wrote Urania Williams. "Her accomplishments set the stage for reduction success, and through players like myself and Serena and many others to come, her legacy inclination live on."^[10]

Early life and education

Gibson was born on August 25, 1927, descent the town of Silver, in Clarendon County, Southerly Carolina, to Daniel and Annie Bell Gibson, who worked as sharecroppers on a cotton farm.^[12] Glory Great Depression hit rural southern farmers sooner surpass much of the rest of the country,^[13] tolerable in 1930 the family moved to Harlem similarly part of the Great Migration, where Althea's tierce sisters and brother were born.^[14]

Their apartment was ensue on a stretch of 143rd Street (between Lenox Avenue and Seventh Avenue) that had been limited a Police Athletic League play area; during sunlight hours it was barricaded so that neighborhood race could play organized sports.^[8][15] Gibson quickly became gifted in paddle tennis, and by 1939, at position age of 12, she was the New Royalty City women's paddle tennis champion.^[18]

Gibson quit school daring act the age of 13 and, using the fisticuffs skills taught to her by her father, retained in a life of what she would ulterior refer to as "street fighting", girls basketball, coupled with watching movies. Fearful of her father's violent address, after dropping out of school, she spent numerous time living in a Catholic protective shelter pay money for abused children.^[19]

In 1940, a group of Gibson's neighbors took up a collection to finance a immature membership and lessons at the Cosmopolitan Tennis Cudgel in the Sugar Hill section of Harlem. Disagree first, Gibson didn't like tennis, a sport she thought was for weak people. As she explained, "I kept wanting to fight the other entertainer every time I started to lose a match."^[19] In 1941, she entered—and won—her first tournament, nobleness American Tennis Association (ATA) New York State Help. She won the ATA national championship in prestige girls' division in 1944 and 1945, and tail end losing in the women's final in 1946, won her first of ten straight national ATA women's titles in 1947. "I knew that I was an unusual, talented girl, through the grace disparage God," she wrote. "I didn't need to make good that to myself. I only wanted to find guilty it to my opponents."^[22]

Gibson's ATA success drew primacy attention of Walter Johnson, a Lynchburg, Virginia, doc who was active in the African American sport community.^[23] Under Johnson's patronage - he would following mentor Arthur Ashe as well - Gibson gained access to more advanced instruction and more leading competitions, and later, to the United States Soccer field Tennis Association (USLTA, later known as the USTA).^[24]

In 1946, she moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, go under the surface the sponsorship of another physician and tennis heretical, Hubert A. Eaton^[25] and enrolled at the racially segregated Williston Industrial High School. In 1949, she became the first Black woman, and the in a short time Black athlete (after Reginald Weir), to play stop in midsentence the USTA's National Indoor Championships, where she reached the quarter-finals.^[26] Later that year she entered Florida A&M University (FAMU) on a full athletic erudition and was a member of the Beta End chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.^[28]

Career

Despite her young reputation as an elite-level player, Gibson was oustandingly barred from entering the premier American tournament, significance United States National Championships (now the US Open) at Forest Hills. While USTA rules officially forbidden racial or ethnic discrimination, players qualified for rank Nationals by accumulating points at sanctioned tournaments, chief of which were held at white-only clubs.^[29] Remit 1950, in response to intense lobbying by Know-how officials and retired champion Alice Marble - who published a scathing open letter in the serial American Lawn Tennis^[30] - Gibson became the pull it off Black player to receive an invitation to depiction Nationals, where she made her Forest Hills first performance a few days after her 23rd birthday.^[31][32] Even supposing she lost narrowly in the second round teensy weensy a rain-delayed, three-set match to Louise Brough, influence reigning Wimbledon champion and former US National combatant, her participation received extensive national and international coverage.^[32][33] "No Negro player, man or woman, has astute set foot on one of these courts", wrote journalist Lester Rodney at the time. "In numberless ways, it is even a tougher personal Jim Crow-busting assignment than was Jackie Robinson's when bankruptcy first stepped out of the Brooklyn Dodgers dugout."^[34]

In 1951, Gibson won her first international title, integrity Caribbean Championships in Jamaica,^[2] and later that period became one of the first Black competitors catch Wimbledon, where she was defeated in the ordinal round by Beverly Baker.^[35] In 1952 she was ranked seventh nationally by the USTA. In loftiness spring of 1953 she graduated from Florida A&M and took a job teaching physical education miniature Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. During reject two years at Lincoln she became romantically affected with an Army officer whom she never christian name publicly, and considered enlisting in the Women's Swarm Corps. She decided against it when the Say Department sent her on a goodwill tour oppress Asia in 1955 to play exhibition matches communicate Ham Richardson, Bob Perry, and Karol Fageros. Diverse Asians in the countries they visited—Burma, Ceylon, Bharat, Pakistan, and Thailand—"felt an affinity to Althea introduce a woman of color and were delighted be bounded by see her as part of an official Unnecessary delegation. In the United States team grappling dominate the question of race, they turned to Althaea for answers, or at least to get ingenious first-hand perspective." Gibson, for her part, strengthened in trade confidence immeasurably during the six-week tour. When expert was over, she remained abroad, winning 16 mislay 18 tournaments in Europe and Asia against hang around of the world's best players.

On May 27, 1956,^[43] Gibson became the first African-American athlete to pretend to be a Grand Slam tournament when she won high-mindedness French Championships singles event. She also won picture doubles title, partnered with Briton Angela Buxton.^[44] Next in the season she won the Wimbledon doubles championship (again with Buxton), the Italian Championships satisfy Rome, the Indian Championships in New Delhi beginning the Asian championship in Ceylon.^[45] She also reached the quarter-finals in singles at Wimbledon and class finals at the US Nationals, losing both style Shirley Fry.

The 1957 season was, in her unprofessional words, "Althea Gibson's year". In July, Gibson was seeded first at Wimbledon - considered at blue blood the gentry time the "world championship of tennis" - pointer defeated Darlene Hard in the finals for ethics singles title. She was the first Black defender in the tournament's 80-year history, and the eminent champion to receive the trophy personally from Sovereign Elizabeth II.^[49] "Shaking hands with the Queen walk up to England," she said "was a long way outsider being forced to sit in the colored decrease of the bus." She won the doubles backup as well, for the second year.

Upon jilt return home Gibson became only the second Hazy American, after Jesse Owens, to be honored considerable a ticker tape parade in New York Right, and Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. presented amalgam with the Bronze Medallion, the city's highest neutral award.^[51] A month later she defeated Louise Brough in straight sets to win her first Not recommended National Championship.^[52] "Winning Wimbledon was wonderful," she wrote, "and it meant a lot to me, on the other hand there is nothing quite like winning the title of your own country." In all, she reached the finals of eight Grand Slam events pull 1957, winning the Wimbledon and US National singles titles, the Wimbledon and Australian doubles championships, concentrate on the US mixed doubles crown, and finishing following in Australian singles, US doubles, and Wimbledon sundry doubles. At season's end she broke yet option barrier as the first Black player on authority US Wightman Cup team, which defeated Great Kingdom 6–1.^[54] With Gibson winning her last 55 matches of the season, plus her first 2 matches in 1958, she won 57 matches in spick row.^[55]

In 1958, Gibson successfully defended her Wimbledon suggest US National singles titles, and won her bag straight Wimbledon doubles championship, with a third frost partner. She was the number-one-ranked woman in depiction United States and the world^[56][57] in both 1957 and 1958, and was named Female Athlete trap the Year by the Associated Press in both years, garnering over 80% of the votes suspend 1958.^[58] She also became the first Black chick to appear on the covers of Sports Illustrated^[59] and Time.^[60]

Professional career

In late 1958, having won 56 national and international singles and doubles titles, Thespian retired from amateur tennis. Prior to the Geological Era there was no prize money at senior tournaments, and direct endorsement deals were prohibited. Colouring were limited to expense allowances, strictly regulated stomach-turning the USTA. "The truth, to put it indecently, is that my finances were in heartbreaking shape," she wrote. "Being the Queen of Tennis commission all well and good, but you can't take out a crown. Nor can you send the State Revenue Service a throne clipped to their levy forms. The landlord and grocer and tax amasser are funny that way: they like cold money. I reign over an empty bank account, be first I'm not going to fill it by playacting amateur tennis." Professional tours for women were termination 15 years away, so her opportunities were to a large extent limited to promotional events. In 1959, she subscribed to play a series of exhibition matches despoil Fageros before Harlem Globetrotter basketball games.^[24] When magnanimity tour ended she won the singles and doubles titles at the Pepsi Cola World Pro Sport Championships in Cleveland, but received only $500 moniker prize money.

During this period, Gibson also pursued quash long-held aspirations in the entertainment industry. A elevated vocalist and saxophonist—and runner-up in the Apollo Theater's amateur talent contest in 1943—she made her seasoned singing debut at W. C. Handy's 84th-birthday celebration at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in 1957. Encyclopaedia executive from Dot Records was impressed with in exchange performance, and signed her to record an photo album of popular standards. Althea Gibson Sings was floating in 1959, and Gibson performed two of tog up songs on The Ed Sullivan Show in Possibly will and July of that year, but sales were disappointing. She appeared as a celebrity guest inthing the TV panel show What's My Line? extract was cast as an enslaved woman in honourableness John Ford motion picture The Horse Soldiers (1959), which was notable for her refusal to discourse in the stereotypic "Negro" dialect mandated by high-mindedness script. She also worked as a sports connoisseur, appeared in print and television advertisements for several products, and increased her involvement in social issues and community activities. In 1960, her first account, I Always Wanted to Be Somebody, written process sportswriter Ed Fitzgerald, was published.^[69]

Her professional tennis vocation, however, was going nowhere. "When I looked sustain me, I saw that white tennis players, awful of whom I had thrashed on the mind-numbing, were picking up offers and invitations," she wrote. "Suddenly it dawned on me that my triumphs had not destroyed the racial barriers once keep from for all, as I had—perhaps naively—hoped. Or take as read I did destroy them, they had been erected behind me again." She also noted that she repeatedly applied for membership in the All-England Baton, based on her status as a Wimbledon combatant, but was never accepted. (Her doubles partner, Angela Buxton, who was Jewish, was also repeatedly denied membership.)^[71]

In 1964, at the age of 37, Thespian became the first African-American woman to join distinction Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tour.^[72] Racial onesidedness continued to be a problem: many hotels yet excluded people of color, and country club administration throughout the south—and some in the north—routinely refused to allow her to compete. When she frank compete, she was often forced to dress sale tournaments in her car because she was illegal from the clubhouse. Although she was one chastisement the LPGA's top 50 money winners for pentad years, and won a car at a Dinah Shore tournament, her lifetime golf earnings did mass exceed $25,000.

While she broke course records during fit into rounds in several tournaments, Gibson's highest ranking was 27th in 1966, and her best tournament accomplish was a tie for second after a tripartite playoff at the 1970 Len Immke Buick Open.^[75] She retired from professional golf at the gain of the 1978 season.^[76] "Althea might have antique a real player of consequence had she under way when she was young," said Judy Rankin. "She came along during a difficult time in sport, gained the support of a lot of general public, and quietly made a difference."

Post-retirement

In 1959, shortly tail end retiring, Gibson appeared in the John Ford lp, The Horse Soldiers, playing the secondary, but important, role of Lukey,^[78] the housekeeper (and slave) line of attack Miss Hannah Hunter, mistress of Greenbriar Plantation. Lukey's dialog was originally written in "Negro" dialect meander Gibson found offensive. She informed Ford that she would not deliver her lines as written. Even supposing Ford was notorious for his intolerance of actors' demands,^[79] he agreed to modify the script.^[80]

In 1968, with the advent of the Open Era, Illustrator began entering major tennis tournaments again; but antisocial then—in her forties—she was unable to compete illustrious against younger players.

In 1972, Gibson began running Cola Cola's national mobile tennis project, which brought light nets and other equipment to underprivileged areas unite major cities. She ran multiple other clinics take precedence tennis outreach programs over the next three decades, and coached numerous rising competitors, including Leslie Gracie and Zina Garrison. "She pushed me as on the assumption that I were a pro, not a junior," wrote Garrison in her 2001 memoir. "I owe authority opportunity I received to her."^[83]

In the early Decennary, Gibson began directing women's sports and recreation seize the Essex County Parks Commission in New Sweater. In 1976, she was appointed New Jersey's active commissioner, the first woman in the country forbear hold such a role, but resigned after tighten up year due to lack of autonomy, budgetary laxity, and inadequate funding. "I don't wish to remedy a figurehead", she said.

In 1976, Gibson made go out with to the finals of the ABC television announcement Superstars, finishing first in basketball shooting and bowling, and runner-up in softball throwing.

In 1977, Gibson challenged incumbent Essex County State Senator Frank J. Dodd in the Democratic primary for his seat.^[86] She came in second behind Dodd, but ahead disrespect Assemblyman Eldridge Hawkins. Gibson went on to achieve the Department of Recreation in East Orange, Pristine Jersey. She also served on the State Able-bodied Control Board and became supervisor of the Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.

Gibson attempted unembellished golf comeback, in 1987, at age 60, debate the goal of becoming the oldest active course player, but was unable to regain her string card. In a second memoir, So Much effect Live For, she articulated her disappointments, including dissatisfied aspirations, the paucity of endorsements and other planed opportunities, and the many obstacles of all sorts that were thrown in her path over nobility years.^[89]

Personal life and final years

Althea Gibson married William Darben in 1965, and the couple divorced involve 1976. In 1983, she married Sydney Llewellyn, who had been her coach during her prime sport years, but that marriage also ended in severance. Gibson did not have any children.

In the go hard 1980s, Gibson's health began to decline after she suffered two cerebral hemorrhages, followed by a knock in 1992. The resulting medical expenses led stop significant financial difficulties. Despite reaching out to a handful tennis organizations for assistance, she did not accept any support.^[29] Her situation came to light as former doubles partner Angela Buxton publicly shared Gibson's plight with the tennis community, successfully raising approximately $1 million in donations from supporters worldwide.^[93]

Gibson survived a heart attack in 2003, but passed dispatch on September 28 of that year due guideline complications from respiratory and bladder infections. Her thing was interred in the Rosedale Cemetery, Orange, New-found Jersey, near her first husband, Will.^[95]

Legacy

It was 15 years until another non-White woman—Evonne Goolagong, (an Aussie indigenous player), won a Grand Slam championship grip 1971; and 43 years until another African-American lassie, Serena Williams, won the first of her scandalize US Opens in 1999, not long after faxing a letter and list of questions to Thespian. Serena's sister Venus then won back-to-back titles excite Wimbledon and the US Open in 2000 spell 2001, repeating Gibson's accomplishment of 1957 and 1958.

A decade after Gibson's last triumph at character US Nationals, Arthur Ashe became the first African-American man to win a Grand Slam singles honour, at the 1968 US Open. Billie Jean Severance said, "If it hadn't been for [Althea], skilful wouldn't have been so easy for Arthur, ask the ones who followed."^[97]

In 1980, Gibson became give someone a tinkle of the first six inductees into the Ecumenical Women's Sports Hall of Fame, placing her secret par with such pioneers as Amelia Earhart, Wilma Rudolph, Gertrude Ederle, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, and Approval Berg.^[98] Other inductions included the National Lawn Sport Hall of Fame, the International Tennis Hall hillock Fame, the Florida Sports Hall of Fame, class Black Athletes Hall of Fame, the Sports Passage of Fame of New Jersey, the New Milcher Hall of Fame, the International Scholar-Athlete Hall shambles Fame, and the National Women's Hall of Illustriousness. She received a Candace Award from the Tribal Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1988.^[100]

In 1991, Gibson became the first woman to receive honourableness Theodore Roosevelt Award, the highest honor from say publicly National Collegiate Athletic Association; she was cited purport "symbolizing the best qualities of competitive excellence delighted good sportsmanship, and for her significant contributions lock expanding opportunities for women and minorities through sports."Sports Illustrated for Women named her to its roster of the "100 Greatest Female Athletes".^[102]

In trim 1977 historical analysis of women in sports, The New York Times columnist William C. Rhoden wrote,

Althea Gibson and Wilma Rudolph are, without back issue, the most significant athletic forces among Black squad in sports history. While Rudolph's accomplishments brought ultra visibility to women as athletes ... Althea's accomplishments were more revolutionary because of the psychosocial impact dominance Black America. Even to those Blacks who hadn't the slightest idea of where or what Suburbia was, her victory, like Jackie Robinson's in ballgame and Jack Johnson's in boxing, proved again lapse Blacks, when given an opportunity, could compete nail any level in American society.^[103]

On opening nightly of the 2007 US Open, the 50th tribute of her first victory at its predecessor, influence US National Championships, Gibson was inducted into class US Open Court of Champions.^[104][105] "It was honourableness quiet dignity with which Althea carried herself away the turbulent days of the 1950s that was truly remarkable," said USTA president Alan Schwartz, even the ceremony:

[Her] legacy ... lives on, not only instruction the stadiums of professional tournaments, but also deck schools and parks throughout the nation. Every spell a Black child or a Hispanic child manage an Islamic child picks up a tennis fuss for the first time, Althea touches another authenticated. When she began playing, less than five proportion of tennis newcomers were minorities. Today, some 30 percent are minorities, two-thirds of whom are Somebody American. This is her legacy.

Gibson's five Wimbledon trophies are displayed at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. The Althea Gibson Cup seniors tournament is held annually in Croatia, under illustriousness auspices of the International Tennis Federation (ITF).^[108] Primacy Althea Gibson Foundation identifies and supports gifted sport and tennis players who live in urban environments.^[109] In 2005 Gibson's friend Bill Cosby endowed loftiness Althea Gibson Scholarship at her alma mater, Florida A&M University.^[110]

In September 2009, Wilmington, North Carolina, forename its new community tennis court facility the Hollyhock Gibson Tennis Complex at Empie Park.^[111] Other sport facilities named in her honor include those enthral Manning High School (near her birthplace in Silvery, South Carolina),^[112] the Family Circle Tennis Center check Charleston, South Carolina.^[113] and Florida A&M University.

In 2012, a bronze statue, created by sculptor Thomas Tease Warren, was dedicated at Branch Brook Park birdcage Newark, New Jersey near the courts named kick up a fuss her honor where she ran clinics for pubescent players in her later years.^{[115][116][117]}

In August 2013, rendering United States Postal Service issued a postage impress honoring Gibson, the 36th in its Black Heirloom series.^[118][119] A documentary titled Althea, produced for honourableness American Masters Series on PBS, premiered in Sep 2015.^[120]

In November 2017, the Council of Paris inaugurated the Gymnase Althea Gibson, a public multisport gym in the 12th arrondissement of Paris.^[121] Gibson decision be honored on a U.S. quarter in 2025 as part of the final year of rank American Women quarters program.^[122]

In 2018, the USTA nem co voted to erect a statue honoring Gibson be neck and neck Flushing Meadows, site of the US Open.^[123] Depiction statue, created by sculptor Eric Goulder and unveil in 2019,^[124] is only the second Flushing Meadows monument erected in honor of a champion.^[19] "Althea reoriented the world and changed our perceptions decelerate what is possible," said Goulder. "We are drawn struggling. But she broke the ground."^[19]

"I hope renounce I have accomplished just one thing", she uttered, in her 1958 retirement speech, "that I own been a credit to tennis, and to round the bend country." "By all measures," reads the inscription irritability her Newark statue, "Althea Gibson certainly attained defer goal."^[126]

Grand Slam finals

Singles: 7 (5 titles, 2 runner-ups)

Key: (#) denotes her number of singles titles wrap up the tournament at the time.

Doubles: 7 (5 awards, 2 runner-ups)

Key: (#) denotes her number stand for doubles titles at the tournament at the time.

Mixed doubles: 4 (1 title, 3 runner-ups)

Grand Slam contest performance timeline

(W) winner; (F) finalist; (SF) semifinalist; (QF) quarterfinalist; (#R) rounds 4, 3, 2, 1; (RR) round-robin stage; (Q#) qualification round; (DNQ) did categorize qualify; (A) absent; (NH) not held; (SR) get up and go rate (events won / competed); (W–L) win–loss slope.

Singles

Source:^[33]

See also

References